I hope everyone had a nice Valentine’s day and the day off for President’s day.

After steadily improving for most of 2014, mortgage interest rates finally moved higher last week. The Mortgage Backed Security (MBS) market finished the week trading down -54 basis points, pushing 30 year fixed conforming rates to 4.375% costing .83 points at the end of the day on February 14th, 2014. 15 Year Fixed conforming rates did not move as much, but finished Friday at 3.375% costing .7 points.

Janet Yellen’s (the new FED Cheif) testimony last week made it very clear the FEDs outlook on the economy and Quantitative Easing moving forward. Yellen was enthusiastic about increased growth in the US economy in 2014, and mentioned that the slower growth in 2014 thus far could be a factor of the bad weather that has hurt the economy on the East coast – where a large share of the economy lives and works.

She also stated that the FED would continue to taper the stimulus QE3 and that they should be out of the market completely by the end of 2014. This is big news and likely means the FED will taper at every meeting this year until there is no more to taper. With the FED getting out of the mortgage business – the long term interest rate outlook remains one of increasing interest rates. Remember, the FED getting into the MBS market pushed rates to their historically low levels 3 years ago. With the FED getting out of the MBS market, interest rates should continue to go up.